On July 29th, BitPay released the latest version of the BitPay wallet app with an exciting new feature. Going forward, you will be able to recover multiple wallets in multiple cryptocurrencies with a single recovery phrase.

BitPay Wallet App Now Allows a Single Private Key for Multiple Wallets

Our previous version required a 12-word recovery phrase corresponding to a private key for every individual wallet you created. With this update, you can now use the same private key for multiple wallets. This allows you to:

  • use one recovery phrase to back up as many wallets as you want.
  • recover all of your wallets at the same time with one recovery phrase
  • import wallets from other wallet apps (more compatibility/portability)

If you are updating to this new version, the BitPay app will import your current private keys when updating. These keys will remain untouched, and will keep their own recovery phrases. This means you need to keep those recovery phrases safe if you plan to continue using your old wallets and private keys.

The wallets you created before the update cannot be included in a new multi-wallet private key since they already have their own private key and recovery phrases. If you want the benefits of a single recovery phrase, you will need to create a new private key (along with the corresponding recovery phrase) and move the funds there. After this update, every wallet you create will be created within a one recovery phrase grouping.

New to the BitPay app? Download it today and get started!